Welcome to my blog!

We find ourselves in challenging times. To meet them more easily, I believe involves challenging ourselves to move beyond old, established habits and patterns.

Perhaps I am a bit late fully entering into the 21st century by starting my blog now, in 2010! In that my work and message has so much to do with slowing down and settling into a deeper knowing beyond and prior to our cultural modes, it may be appropriate to step extra slowly into the world of blogging and other cyber realities.

I suspect that, if you are drawn to my blog and the words here, you may also value this slower, deeper state we are all capable of. I invite you to read on and regularly, and hope the words below can support you in enhancing your ability to be, even in the midst of all the doing required in our modern world.

Saturday, 31 August 2013

Doing Not Doing In Biodynamics– Wu Wei Wu Part 2

My previous blog article explored the
concept of doing while not doing in Continuum. As follow up, I would like to
now discuss how this phenomenon applies in my other passion, Craniosacral
Biodynamics.

Biodynamics has evolved from the later work
of William Sutherland, grandfather of cranial osteopathy. As an early
osteopath, Sutherland’s training involved assessing boney and structural alignment.
He explored osteopathy in the cranial field from this perspective, evaluating
if and how the cranial bones moved and using subtle manipulative techniques
derived from osteopathic practice to enhance their alignment.

Towards
the end of his 40 years of studying and facilitating the subtle movements of
the bones, tissues, and fluids of the body, Sutherland had a direct experience
of a mysterious essence he termed “the Breath of Life.” His work in the last
decade of his life was characterized by less active doing, and more attention
to deeper forces. He advised his students to “Rely upon the Tide.” He wrote:

“Visualize a potency, an intelligent potency,
that is more intelligent than your own human mentality … You will have observed
its potency and also its Intelligence, spelled with a capital I. It is
something you can depend upon to do the work for you. In other words, don’t try
to drive the mechanism through any external force. Rely upon the Tide”

The
meaning of this advice has taken some time for cranial practitioners to
integrate. As it is interpreted by some of us in the field of Biodynamics
today, relying upon the Tide is a highly foreign approach for modern, western
people. It involves a major paradigm shift. In a sense, this paradigm shift is
the topic of this article.

Many
forms of cranial practice are derived more directly from Sutherland’s earlier,
more manipulative work. While the manipulations and listening are relatively
subtle, compared to everyday activity, they can be extremely active and even
invasive from a Biodynamic perspective. As we enter into Biodynamic perceptual
states, the practice of Wu Wei Wu, doing-not doing becomes increasingly
relevant.

In
Biodynamics, we work with multiple levels of perception relating to our
emergence as physical beings within an energetic suspensory system of overlapping
energetic fields within fields. Widening our perception to include more and
more of the wholeness of being involves slowing ourselves down. The more we try
to do, the more active we are, the less chance we have of perceiving the more
subtle fields supporting our being.

Here is
the ironic twist of this paradigm shift. In our modern western culture (and
quite possibly in many more traditional cultures), we actively engage with
life. Particularly in the 21st century, we shift from one activity
to another quickly, checking off our to-do list, answering phone calls, reading
and replying to emails, texts, Facebook pokes etc., driving and watching
television in between. Rest is poorly understood and rarely practiced. How do
we not do? Even more challenging, how do we not do while doing? What does that
mean?

Evolving a Curriculum of Being

Franklyn
Sills, who began developing the first curriculum in Biodynamics for
non-osteopaths in 1987, has struggled with how to teach this approach for many
years. Initially, he believed it was important to provide the kinds of skills
and techniques he had learned in osteopathic college. By 1992, he and his
teaching team realized they were teaching skills they weren’t actually
practicing, that were not actually relevant to a Biodynamic practice. Here
began a long exploration of how to train practitioners to perceive and practice
in more subtle, energetic realms. More active manipulative techniques were
replaced in the curriculum by practicing shifts in attention and intention.
When I began learning Biodynamics in 1999, I was taught to have conversations
with the tissues, rather than testing them to see which way they preferred to
move. Instead of nudging them physically in one direction or another to assess
the direction of ease, we would ask them in our thoughts questions like, do you
prefer to move this way? Would you like to have more space here?

There
was an understanding that the fluid body we were interacting with was highly
sensitive to external influences. Our tissues are made up mostly of water. We
know that water is a highly resonant element. For example, Masaru Emoto has
illustrated how water responds to words, both written and spoken, and to music.
While his research has been questioned due to challenges of other researchers
to replicate his results, the research of William Tiller clearly demonstrates
that the pH of water responds to human intention, even over many miles.

As
Biodynamics developed further, it became clearer that even posing a question to
fluid tissues affected it in a way that may not be aligned with the inherent
intention of the client’s system. The understanding and teaching of Biodynamics
continues to evolve, further reducing the level of active engagement by the
practitioner. At this point, the primary skills used more often in treatment
are about providing a supportive, relational presence. We support the client in
settling and quieting in a way that their trauma history becomes less
predominant and more inherent Biodynamic forces of health can come to the fore.
With sufficient settling, the client’s system is increasingly able to access
the resources it needs to enhance and reorient to deeper levels of health. Most
of the time, this is all that is needed.

Sutherland’s
student, Roland Becker, coined the term rhythmic balanced interchange. He noted
that the goal of the practitioner was to support the tissues in communicating
with the Breath of Life. Once this interchange was apparent, the practitioner’s
job was done. In rare situations where the system or tissues are too locked up
for this interchange to occur, some form of intervention may be helpful. This
seems to apply only about 5% of the time when we know how to meet and hold the
system in a truly supportive way. I find this percentage interesting, as I have
encountered the same numbers in relation to the realistic necessity for
intervention by birth assistants! When a birthing family is held and met with
settled, respectful, supportive presence, interventions are rarely needed. Just
as understanding and skill in supporting birth in less active, intervening ways
has been returning in the west, so, too, has Biodynamics been continuing to
clarify in this direction of non-doing.

Skills of Augmentation

More
recently, Sills has shifted his language from skills of conversation to skills
of augmentation. As Sills points out in his book, Foundations in Craniosacral Biodynamics, Volume 1, wu wei wu is
very relevant to the practice of augmentation skills.

Augmentation
basically refers to how practitioner attention can be utilized to enhance an
already naturally occurring phenomenon. For example, in the inhalation phase of
the subtle breath we call primary respiration in Biodynamics, there is a
natural expression of space within and between the tissues. When tissues are
highly compressed or contracted and unable to move with this primary breath, practitioners
might “augment space” by orienting to this natural increase in expression of space
and the potency within it during inhalation. We aren’t exactly doing anything
here. We are slightly altering our orientation. On a possibly more active level,
we may allow our hands to breathe slightly more with inhalation as they float
on the tissues, suspended in the breathing fluid body. Personally, I find I
don’t need to think about allowing my hands to breathe more; they do this
naturally as I orient to inhalation.

Another
way to augment space, which we tend to do all the time as Biodynamic
practitioners, is in orienting more widely than the tissues themselves. We
perceive the tissues as suspended within a larger fluid field (the fluid body),
suspended within a still larger energetic field (the tidal body of the long
tide). All of this is suspended within a ground of dynamic stillness. When we
work with tissues in a particular area of the body, we do not narrow our
attention in on this area. We maintain a wide field of perception, accessing
the space, as well as deeper formative forces of the surrounding fields. Our
orientation in itself serves to augment the relationship to space and the
resource of these forces for the tissues. The area in question then has more
ability to access these larger resources.

Shifting
orientation, where I put my attention and what I think about, remind me of
meditation. How much is this a doing? To what extent is this a non-doing? Wu
wei wu. If I try to practice these skills of augmentation as a doing, the fluid
body is likely to object, sensing an external force. If I am able to practice
this subtle doing as a non-doing, more of a being with, the client’s system can
settle, relax and receive the support of a friendly assistant.

Being
with, as a doing not doing, wu wei wu, reminds me of love. Can I be present
with my client in a state of loving appreciation and acceptance for what is,
for how their system has organized itself to compensate for any conditions in
their history? Can I rest in trusting the intelligence of the Tide to do its
work? Can I truly allow the inherent treatment plan to unfold without needing
to bring in my opinion of how I think things should be, what I believe needs to
be worked with next, or what my ego feels I must do in order to be important,
appreciated, needed, good enough, etc?

Like any
meditation practice, Biodynamics is an opportunity to witness my tendencies,
practice being with what is, and deepen further into love.

1 comment:

When I first "learned" craniosacral work I inherently knew that I was not to be manipulating anything - even though that is what was being taught. Consequently I felt as if I would never understand how to DO the work. It wasn't until I gave myself permission to "let the work do the work" (as Mike Boxhall has always said) that I fully and completely allowed myself to be present to what IS.

I Do Nothing,and the people transform themselves.I love Stillness,and the people bring themselves to correctness.I do No Work,and the people enrich themselves.I have no desires,and the people by themselves become Simple.